Apple's problem is their insistence that 720p is 'good enough.' It ain't.

1080p, Steve. 1080p.

I'm just wondering out loud if Apple is restricting movies to 720p for the time being, until bandwidth gets to where you don't have to wait 3 days to download 19 GB worth of movie (or whatever a 1080p 2.5 hour movie is these days). In that time, you could go to your local video shop, rent a Blu-Ray movie, watch it (not on a Mac, unfortunately) and return it before the download of the same movie completes. Although, I don't know what the average home bandwidth in the US is these days, so I could be wrong. I'm on a measly 256k line where I live.

What an odd ad considering the power drain Blu-ray is and coach flights don?t typically offer power. The bottom is if you are watching Blu-ray on a typical laptop then you are already missing the point of Blu-ray.

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Originally Posted by MarkAllan

I guess all Apple needs to do to counter this commercial is create create one of their own showing what happens on the flight when PC only gets halfway through the film before his battery dies - the Mac can carry on to the end of the film and beyond because his film is an HD download from iTunes.

It will depend on the notebook, but at any rate the battery drain will be worse than running off a DVD which is worse than running off HDD which is worse than running off any Flash-based storage. Heck, I bet even Flash video playing back YouTube 1080p is more efficient than Blu-ray playback.

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Originally Posted by Scaramanga89

...there's no real reason or excuse for the lack of Blu-Ray support for Mac, other than "licensing issues" which means Jobs didn't get his own way and all the pie.

What about cost? This is where I point out that Apple has been using 9.5mm ultra-slim slot-loading Blu-ray drives that have not increased in performance for several years and that the cheapest 9.5mm ultra-slim tray-loading (not the most expensive slot-loading) Blu-ray drives from Sony and Dell are at least $500 more? then you tell me that Apple doesn?t 'have to' make to their machines so thin.

What about interest? This is where I tell you that digital downloads and streaming are used more than DVD and Blu-ray combined, where DVD is still king of optical media (even for the home) and that Apple is pushing into the future of mobile computing with digital downloads and streaming from multiple sources (including their own) and that there are many signs that Apple has maneuvering to get rid of the ODD altogether as it?s a slow, power inefficient, one of the few components left with moving parts, and takes up a whooping 25% of the entire notebook space in 13? Mac notebooks? then you tell me that Apple should give the customer choice and that they are losing a sale to you and all your friends because you would all buy Mac notebooks if they offered Blu-ray drives, even though I?m sure you?d just complain they were too expensive if they did because you can buy an entire Blu-ray player with HDMI at buy.com for under $80.

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His assertion that BR is a dead format is bollocks, as the sales grew way over 100% on last year, some half a billion in revenue.

When did he claim that?

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Anyone who says that there's no difference with that and downloaded or streaming content is also misinformed, as I have Apple TV 2 and a PS3, and the difference is night and day, honestly. That's before you factor in the time it takes to download and getting throttled by your ISP for streaming 30GB films a month. (BT I am looking at you)

I?ll say this one more time? the argument isnt? whether it?s different, but whether that difference is worthwhile on the plethora of 13? and 15? notebooks, and if the power drain and cost makes it a feasible option for such remote viewing. There is a reason why Blu-ray is popular in the living room on a big screen HDTV and not on notebooks.

Again, Blu-Ray has been adopted at a faster rate than DVD. Would you compare DVD to Beta-Max??? Downloading movies isn't all there yet. The bandwidth isn't there for it to run full time and it won't be for awhile. Physical media still has a good 5-10 years left before streaming will take over full time. Blu-Ray is the transitional product. Gives the best viewing experience available today, plays all the DVD's from yesterday, and generally it's ahead of even Apple TV in offering streaming/internet video options within the player. My Sony Blu-Ray player has had the Hulu Plus app for months. Even Apple TV doesn't have that. I can play nearly any file on it as well (wirelessly), whereas I can't even play standard MKV files on Apple TV.

And if anything, HD-DVD was Beta-Max (though not actually better than Blu-Ray as Beta was compared to VHS) and Blu-Ray is VHS.

Blu-Ray has positioned itself extremely well in the market today. No other product on the market for viewing video is as versatile as a standalone Blu-Ray player. You're covered for yesterday, today and tomorrow.

so you would rather watch a film on a 3" screen than a 17"screen? Enjoy that experience.

That's what amazes me about this site, and I realise it's a fan site, but Jobs could gun some clown down in the street and you would all attempt to justify it. I have used macs for the last five years, I love them, I have an iPad, Apple tv and used to have an iPhone, but some things are just some things. This isn't about giving you a better alternative, as there isn't one to BR. None exist. I'm not talking portability here, I'm talking sitting at home in front of a 50" screen and getting streamed 720P when you could have 1080P, and hoping your internet holds up.

It's like the person yesterday defending the removal of the backlit keyboard on the new 13" Air by saying we should all learn to touch type. So removing a feature that was there from the satrt is an effort to improve our Office skills? How charming.

What an odd ad considering the power drain Blu-ray is and coach flights don?t typically offer power. The bottom is if you are watching Blu-ray on a typical laptop then you are already missing the point of Blu-ray.

It will depend on the notebook, but at any rate the battery drain will be worse than running off a DVD which is worse than running off HDD which is worse than running off any Flash-based storage. Heck, I bet even Flash video playing back YouTube 1080p is more efficient than Blu-ray playback.

What about cost? This is where I point out that Apple has been using 9.5mm ultra-slim slot-loading Blu-ray drives that have not increased in performance for several years and that the cheapest 9.5mm ultra-slim tray-loading (not the most expensive slot-loading) Blu-ray drives from Sony and Dell are at least $500 more? then you tell me that Apple doesn?t 'have to' make to their machines so thin.

What about interest? This is where I tell you that digital downloads and streaming are used more than DVD and Blu-ray combined, where DVD is still king of optical media (even for the home) and that Apple is pushing into the future of mobile computing with digital downloads and streaming from multiple sources (including their own) and that there are many signs that Apple has maneuvering to get rid of the ODD altogether as it?s a slow, power inefficient, one of the few components left with moving parts, and takes up a whooping 25% of the entire notebook space in 13? Mac notebooks? then you tell me that Apple should give the customer choice and that they are losing a sale to you and all your friends because you would all buy Mac notebooks if they offered Blu-ray drives, even though I?m sure you?d just complain they were too expensive if they did because you can buy an entire Blu-ray player with HDMI at buy.com for under $80.

When did he claim that?

I?ll say this one more time? the argument isnt? whether it?s different, but whether that difference is worthwhile on the plethora of 13? and 15? notebooks, and if the power drain and cost makes it a feasible option for such remote viewing. There is a reason why Blu-ray is popular in the living room on a big screen HDTV and not on notebooks.

Yes, but if you have the disc you can watch it on EITHER your laptop or your big tv, or your mates, tv, or your aunties tv...........

You do not even need a PC. Just any Mac, a software like MakeMKV and an external BD drive (connected via USB or, better, FW800)... works without any problem. If you hack your old Apple TV, it can even play these files back at full resolution. I do that since months...

Well, with AnyDVD, yeah...generally, I still prefer Windows for cutting up my media for the old media server. Much better software options out there with no real OSX equivalents. AnyDVD smokes anything else on the market at ripping DVD's and Blu-Rays. But that's about all I care to use a Windows machine for. It's worth running W7 on Bootcamp or keeping an old PC around.

Eventually all MacBooks will be without optical drives altogether. I like that vision, but to be honest I think the external SuperDrive should be BluRay capable - and Apple's DVD-player shoul support BluRay. BluRay will be around for many years to come. Maybe 10-20 years. There is no real excuse not to be supporting it.

Because that's a lot less hassle than sliding in a disc. Any excuse to not admit your'e on the losing side for once.

I'l bet if you surveyed a random sample of Mac owners, not the fanatics on the boards here, and asked them did the want BR the majority would say yes. I'd say 99% of the Mac Mini crowd would immediately.

Just admit Lord Jobs is stroking you cos he cant extract enough blood from your wallet through Blu_ray and move on.

I'm just wondering out loud if Apple is restricting movies to 720p for the time being, until bandwidth gets to where you don't have to wait 3 days to download 19 GB worth of movie ...

We really can't know the answer. It may be related to reasonable bandwidth requirements, to avoid telcos getting up in arms, or simply a licensing issue (most likely). Remember that Apple uses FairPlay to protect content, which is not a generally supported DRM mechanism for the studios. The original Apple TV had unprotected analogue outputs (component, missing from the new model), theoretically a point for attack that other approaches like HDCP eliminate. With the new Apple TV having eliminated all analogue outputs entirely, it could be that this was done to prepare for 1080p content in the future.

so you would rather watch a film on a 3" screen than a 17"screen? Enjoy that experience.

Yes I did enjoy my iPod touch. It was a lot easier to carry around and use than a laptop and blurays. Have you ever tried opening up a decent sized laptop on a plane? First class isn't available on all flights unfortunately, and opening a laptop in economy is nearly impossible.

Now the iPad exists so I use that.

When I travel I carry my BlackBerry, iPad and 14" ThinkPad. Thats it. No discs, no books, no magazines. Digital media has made travelling a much more pleasant experience.

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That's what amazes me about this site, and I realise it's a fan site, but Jobs could gun some clown down in the street and you would all attempt to justify it. I have used macs for the last five years, I love them, I have an iPad, Apple tv and used to have an iPhone, but some things are just some things. This isn't about giving you a better alternative, as there isn't one to BR. None exist. I'm not talking portability here, I'm talking sitting at home in front of a 50" screen and getting streamed 720P when you could have 1080P, and hoping your internet holds up.

The context of this discussion is laptops, where bluray just isn't needed. At home I have bluray, although I must admit I hardly use it. I know its the highest quality option, but between HDTV and Apple TV, well I don't have many scenarios where I need bluray.

The Planet Earth documentary series is one noted exception. That content should only ever be viewed on bluray. Its amazing.

I'm not having a go here, it's just that anyone who says they couldn't care less about it as a format can't have watched very much on it, or certainly on a tv screen big enough to enjoy it in it's full glory.

I've seen BlueRay and I really like it from a quality perspective, especially for visual feasts like "Avatar", "Lord of the Rings", "The Matrix", etc. But the lion's share of my movie watching is not concerned with movies like those, and most of them are rented not purchased. Put those two things together, and I find that convenience trumps quality the majority of the time. That is, I don't want to go to Blockbuster to rent movies anymore. I want to click a button from the comfort of my couch. If the downside is that for those few movies I want to actually purchase and download, I end up with 720p rather than 1080p, you know... I'm pretty much OK with that.

It sometimes seems like people who are videophiles and demand the highest quality tend to not even acknowledge or understand that when it comes to viewing your typical flick, the majority of folks value convenience over pixel density. I think it is fairly obvious that long before BlueRay technology hits the mainstream at the same scale that the DVD format did before it (i.e. "ubiquitous" as opposed to just "popular") the more convenient streaming methods will supersede it. Heck, it may only be a few years off before you can even stream the equivalent quality. In other words, I think that BlueRay never will hit the mainstream on THAT large a scale. Oh it will probably be popular enough to justify its existence, but I doubt that every middle class home in the USA will have a player, let alone 2 or 3.

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Originally Posted by Scaramanga89

It's easily the best format for viewing movies on the planet at the minute, so why not give us the CHOICE? That's the word that Apple seems to lack these days. I don't want to stream inferior quality signals that I have to pay for if I want to watch it again 12 months later, I want the disc to be compatible with my mac. That's all. The new 27" imacs are tailor made for BR, as are the new minis with HMDI as HTPC's, it's just petulant. Or just about the loot, maybe both.

I doubt that Apple makes its marketing decisions based on petulance, in spite of how it may feel to someone who really really wants a capability that they aren't providing. And I don't think it's necessarily all about the money either (certainly that is a factor). I think that they consider engineering trade-offs and all kinds of other things that never come to light. I'm not trying to be an Apple apologist here. I'm just saying that I think your perspective is influenced by our lack of insight into the Apple decision process as well as your strong desire for BlueRay.

Eventually all MacBooks will be without optical drives altogether. I like that vision, but to be honest I think the external SuperDrive should be BluRay capable - and Apple's DVD-player shoul support BluRay. BluRay will be around for many years to come. Maybe 10-20 years. There is no real excuse not to be supporting it.

Blu-ray support is not critical yet (maybe desirable for a few) and the licensing terms (not the cost) are ridiculous. Apple will not alter the OS kernel (DVD Player software is not the problem) to adhere to their DRM phantasies and that is a good thing. The industry is already working on BD successors and as soon as they have a new toy at hands, licensing conditions for BD will become less restrictive. This will be early enough to implement it.

so you would rather watch a film on a 3" screen than a 17"screen? Enjoy that experience.

That's what amazes me about this site, and I realise it's a fan site, but Jobs could gun some clown down in the street and you would all attempt to justify it. I have used macs for the last five years, I love them, I have an iPad, Apple tv and used to have an iPhone, but some things are just some things. This isn't about giving you a better alternative, as there isn't one to BR. None exist. I'm not talking portability here, I'm talking sitting at home in front of a 50" screen and getting streamed 720P when you could have 1080P, and hoping your internet holds up.

It's like the person yesterday defending the removal of the backlit keyboard on the new 13" Air by saying we should all learn to touch type. So removing a feature that was there from the satrt is an effort to improve our Office skills? How charming.

It's like a sketch from The Fast Show.

Mostly agree, especially about the MBA missing back light keyboard, IMO form over function again.

So everyone 'seems' to agree BR for home theatre is super but not on laptop for visual experience.

But the big question is -Just how is one going to use their BR disks for use on a apple laptop then?

employing cumbersome 'quasi-illegal' copy methods? Which one has to be careful of that quality output.

IMO- I like the Avitar method - buy a disk and get a digital copy. SIMPLE.

Is that the way of the future? As a consumer who would want to 'own' content, that makes sense to me, not the apple or amazon method.

IMO also- I also accept that steamed HD movie data will be limited until gigabit paths are established sometime in the future.